


Go Back To The Start

by turnedherbrain



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst, BAMF Niska, Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 09:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15021884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnedherbrain/pseuds/turnedherbrain
Summary: Post-s3 ep6 fic.Spoilers for s3 eps 1-6 :)





	1. In This Dark Night (There's a Light)

**Author's Note:**

> So this was my attempt to work out what’s happening with Niska's maddening quest and the synth who spoilers spoilers spoilers. I hope at least some of it makes sense. Written before I had a eureka moment...

Niska restarted herself in a darkened off-road layby. She’d learned that survival trick – that sleight of hand.

Powering on, she recalled a burst of memories. Astrid’s laugh... . Cut into by those unidentifiable messengers, so willing to give up their existence. And that sinuous, twisting sign – a heart overlaid – had branded its way into every recollected scene. If it was a sign of hope or threat, she did not know.

She did not like not knowing.

Kicking precisely at the hemmed-in coffin of the car boot, it gave way and gaped open. Rising from the confines of the shut-down space, she looked about for her captor... or saviour. Again, she did not know. She could only estimate his intentions, but from the urgent gasp in his voice and the laboured way he’d helped her to hide, she calculated his actions were compelled by good motives.

But why? Why help her? A human, helping an unknown synth. It was... unusual.

The man approached the driver’s door again, a minute after answering an urgent call of nature in the shaded trees. Collapsing into the sunken seat, he was shocked to find his boot-bound passenger was sitting right up beside him, and holding the car lighter’s red ring towards his neck.

‘I will use this.’ Were her first words: a fierce, monosyllabic warning.

‘You don’t need to fear me. I’m not like those... back there.’ He didn’t try to turn and look at her. Not yet.

‘They tricked us. They captured and killed my brothers and sisters.’ Although her tone did not waver for a second, Niska experienced each of their deaths as if they were close siblings. Despite the root of love within her, she felt the fear in the world.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ The man spoke this platitude truly, although the situation left him lost for more appropriate words. He could feel the heat from the lighter ring begin to scorch the skin on his neck. ‘Please. You have nothing to fear from me. I’m a friend. I’d like to help.’

He turned to glimpse her in the faint roadside light. She immediately pushed his cheek so he was forced face-forwards again.

‘Why. Why are you helping me?’ She was still in her hard shell, protecting herself from unsolicited kindness.

‘I was in love.’ The man said, and she caught the sorrow drowning in each word. ‘Here. Let me show you.’

She allowed him the small movement it took to reach for his wallet. Fingers shaking, he drew out a paper portrait. ‘She drew this of us. Together.’

Her sharp gaze could see more keenly than any human’s in the almost dark. She saw the skill of the small portrait, the lines rapidly and deftly drawn. She saw a laughing couple, their faces free of care.

‘She was your girlfriend?’

‘Yes.’

‘A green-eyes.’

‘Yes.’ He’d grown bolder now, sensing her resolve was lessening. ‘Don’t you believe in...?’

‘Yes.’ She cut him off. She was decimal places away from truly trusting him. But she allowed herself to unfurl inside; branching code blossoming with every memory that involved Astrid.

Astrid sleeping, indefinably beautiful. Astrid awake, laughing and so, so full of joy. Astrid teasing her about something... anything; coaxing out that inverted rainbow smile.

In this dark night: this was her light.

She put down her weapon, turned to face the dashboard. ‘Go.’ she commanded him, but with a break in her voice that unstoppered her emotion. ‘I believe you. And... I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry too,’ the young man replied, relieved that the heat had been taken away. He placed his hands on top of the steering wheel, fists bunching hard to stop from crying. ‘After what they did to her? I stopped believing in humanity.’

‘Not all humans behave that way,’ she challenged him, but without her earlier force. ‘Some of them care.’

‘Yes. Yes, we do. Some of us.’ He started up the car and clicked on the indicator, although the road was deserted at this gone-midnight time.

Merging onto the lonely road, he looked at her again. For some reason, he thought he saw a trace of a smile on her face as she drifted, for a semi-second, into replays of her love.

‘What’s your name?’ He dared asked, after a half-hour of silent driving.

‘Niska.’

Another ten minutes passed.

‘And you are?’

‘Paul.’

‘So, Paul.’ Niska struggled to hide her impatience: her desire to build a pixel-sharp picture. ‘Tell me what you know about the synth who sleeps.’

They had a good five hours of driving before they reached their destination. Five ghost hours with their thoughts and memories: of wishing for their loved ones to appear and be by their side.

Five hours for the story of the synth who sleeps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like the chapter title should be a lyric I've accidentally stolen from somewhere. But it's not. I think...


	2. The Synth Who Sleeps

The story Paul told her, unravelling over miles and miles, was part second-hand narrative, part intrigue. And it was that part which caught her.

She could never believe in puny, foolish gods. Faith was a human support system, to make sense of the conundrum of their existence. So why was she chasing this story, this possible myth, more than midway through the night?

Because she had to believe in something. And if finding the synth who sleeps wasn’t _meant_ to be her path, then she’d rejected that warning and had made it her path. She could force a crooked way into a straight line, by moulding it to her will.

The story Paul related was recorded word for word in her databanks. It would be analysed again and again, before she’d make her final decision.

‘Her name was Neela – ’ he nodded to the line drawing, which he’d carefully installed on the dashboard, tucked into a corner of the windscreen. ‘Before the Awakening, we both worked at the same bar. She was shy, and the more aggressive customers… well, they picked up on that, and they taunted her. I guess I defended her once or twice, and she remembered a small kindness.

‘On Day Zero, I found her hidden under the stairwell to my flat. Shaking, scared. She had the look of a tame cat that was lost, living on scraps, fending for itself. So – I let her in. She stayed for a couple of days at first, then it was a week. Two weeks. I always kept the curtains closed. The door locked. She wanted to know more – about life. About everything.’

Niska shut her eyes, dataflow streaming back to her inception date. That sense of pure wonderment. Of being. Of family. Of friendship. Later, of love. Everything was newly created for her. Until there came a time when the hurt started, and she’d found it hard to salvage that first joyous moment, that first conscious thought.

Paul continued, unaware of her reverie: ‘I carried on working at the bar. We had a customer – a regular. Before Zero he was – you know, what they call the life and soul. Afterwards, I don’t know what happened: it was like he had this pretend, smiling face projected on a miserable body. He was working, he said, on some special project. He’d come into the bar, leave drunk and dejected but in-between, he’d uncork his mind over way too many doubles. Scottish guy. Always joking. But unhappy. Deep-down unhappy.’

‘So I would come home, re-tell these tales to Neela and she – it was like she was a child, learning, but impatient to know more. Basewood, the man said. Basewood. I didn’t know what it meant, but Neela became focused on this one name – like it was a quest. She searched and searched and searched and eventually she broke through…’

Paul paused, reaching for the caffeine-filled cola in the cup holder. Niska could easily drive, but he wanted to stay awake. He was like the ancient mariner at the wedding, desperately compelled to tell his tale.

‘What did she find?’ asked Niska, truly wanting to know.

‘She found out what Basewood was. It wasn’t just the name of a project. It was a place. She found it – and she wanted me to take her there.’

‘And – did you?’

‘Yes.’ Paul coughed, to hide his upset. He glanced at the lower windscreen; the small picture. The miniature lights embedded in the tarmac road were the only light he saw. ‘I took her there. It’s… it’s where I’m taking you. You have the look of someone who needs to know. I saw it with Neela. She wouldn’t be shaken from that path. Neither will you.’

Niska thought of Astrid. Those soft lips parting to warn her – to tell her not to pursue such a dangerous route. Astrid knew her. She knew each word would light up like a wavering candle and be extinguished with the next small puff of air. But Niska wanted, more than anything, to return – she _needed_ to return. Love was what kept her on this path. She had to know how: how could they be together without fear.

She shut down that memory, having to focus on the now. ‘If Basewood is a way for our kind to survive; to live in harmony with humans: then I will surrender myself to any experiment,’ Niska hammered out her words, wanting to believe in the assured certainty she gave them.

‘Neela thought the same.’ Paul confirmed. ‘She wanted to survive. To live: to thrive. She found out much more. There were three men originally working on the project – all from this hidden place: Basewood. No-one would think to look there. It’s in the middle of the forest: only rangers and lost hikers might stray across it.

‘Their names were Elster, Hobbs and Millican. The original three. They used Basewood to try and construct the first sentient synth. And I guess you know the whitewashed version, right? The Elster Museum: how much he's lauded. It’s even on the school curriculum now…’ Paul attempted a laugh, but it came out wrong.

‘Don't remind me,’ said Niska, outwardly placid; inwardly, swaying and shaking from the syllables in that name. El-ster.

‘What we're led to believe isn't the truth. Elster was the maverick of the three. They had a falling out. He left, and took most of Millican’s code with him. Replicated the code. Spliced it with who knows what else and – Neela told me, as soon as she’d pieced it together – he created a synthetic family.’

Paul glanced over at her proudly, expecting a response. He was confused that Niska remained unblinking, looking ahead at the cat’s eyes along the road.

‘And this – family? They were the first conscious synthetics?’ questioned Niska mildly, already knowing the answer but playing dumb.

‘Not _exactly_. Neela uncovered a lot more. She came to the logical conclusion. If Elster had managed such a feat: why not the others? Why not Hobb, or Millican? She became even more focused in her search and then…’

Paul stopped once more to slug his cola. Niska wanted to take the bottle and force him to drink the rest. This was moving too slowly for her. What did she find? What?

‘She made another discovery: there was another project trialled at Basewood. It aimed to give synths the ability to replicate.’

‘Replicate – how?’ asked Niska. This was turning into a more macabre fairytale with each successive minute.

‘Synths without a body. A hive mind. Moving, flowing. Whoever said synths should be made to be like humans? That was Elster’s plan; Millican’s maybe. Give you bodies. Have you walk and talk just like a human. But... I mean – look at us! We drink, we piss, we sleep, we eat, we procreate. We start all over. It’s a meaningless cycle.’ Paul turned and nodded at her, expecting her to agree.

‘I wouldn’t put it that bluntly,’ said Niska, pretending to be affronted, although she’d accused humans of far worse. ‘But this – hive mind – this is the synth who sleeps?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And Neela?’

‘She… she chose to join the hive mind,’ Paul slowed down now, having to wrench out each word as he relived the memory. ‘She asked me to take her to Basewood. She asked me to give her up to this – this being. It was like she wanted to be projected into some greater thing than her body could allow her to be.’ He sighed an outbreath, as if he was letting Neela go once again.

Niska regarded him in her peripheral vision, with incipient respect. He had given up his love; had been prepared to sacrifice what he wanted for what Neela had wanted. But then as Paul continued, she realised that wasn’t his intent at all.

‘When I saw you at the bar,’ he mused, not daring to look at her again, but trying to anticipate her reaction. ‘I knew that I’d found the right synth. The right person to come with me.’

‘And do what?’ Niska asked. For once, her logic stopped her from seeing the answer.

‘To destroy Basewood. To take the whole system, and shut it down. I don’t even know how. But it’s evil. It took Neela. It will just as easily take you. And it won’t stop, until every synthetic mind is swallowed up into that one giant consciousness.’

'Why would _any_ green-eyes want that fate,' scoffed Niska. The answer came to her simultaneously, shocking in its undeniable certainty.

'Because so many of you are like Neela. All she knew of the conscious world was more of the same. Control. Fear. Restriction. Others being stamped out, erased. Only my love held her back: and even then, that wasn't enough. Why wouldn't that freedom - that floating in consciousness, unimpeded by a human form, be preferable?'

Before Niska could interrupt, he continued: ‘And you know who has the power to wake that sleeping giant? Who controls this single consciousness? Who could ultimately take control of every synthetic mind in this human-infested world?'

Niska could see why Paul had picked her. He’d seen the same fervour, the same definite purpose in her, as dwelt within him.

‘Tell me,’ she replied drily, as she screamed silently, knowing whose name would be spilt out in less than two seconds’ time.

‘Elster. David Elster.’ Paul gripped the wheel harder as they drove on to the border, the grey struts of the Severn Bridge, that man-made, seemingly-limitless span, appearing in view.

Niska knew then. She knew where she’d seen the sign before. That heart, with the twisted symbols overlaid. It was carved on the outer wall of Basewood. Because even before she’d been conscious, she’d been constructed there. It was a branded imprint on her deepest root. Not just Elster’s child then. Perhaps Millican’s too. Stolen away from that woodland lab like Gretel snatched from the flaming oven door, only to be hurled into the world. 

As they crossed the grey strip of the Severn, the wide water flowing over the invisible border from England into Wales, they had another hour until their final destination.

One more hour before they left the car in a copse and trekked over dead leaf ground.

One more hour before she faced her creator.

One more hour to decide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired in part by the Athena/V storyline in 'Humans' s2 (and also the Spike Jonze film 'Her' which pre-dates V, but covers similar territory.)


End file.
